


Shattered Glass

by InkedQuill (JunellaNyx)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Gen, One-Sided Relationship, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Psychological Trauma, Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9249146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JunellaNyx/pseuds/InkedQuill
Summary: He drew himself to his full height, which put him eye to eye with Fen'harel. "I trust your judgment in many things. But not this."Blue eyes flashed. "You tread on thin ice, Abelas.""You are compromised. And you are well aware of it."The bald elf sighed, and seemed to wilt a little. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes I am.""You looked upon the Tranquil as people who deserved the mercy of death. How is this different?""Sometimes – sometimes she recognises me, and she remembers.""And is that a kindness?"--How do you live with the knowledge you've broken someone you love beyond repair? Fen'harel manages, badly, and Abelas tries to help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I envisioned this in a world where Solas spirits a mage female inquisitor away and imprisons her to keep her safe before he tears the Veil down. The knowledge that she couldn't save her friends breaks her mentally, and she is in a non-verbal, child-like state, and fearful of Solas most days. 
> 
> Abelas discovers her by accident while looking for Solas/Fen'harel one day, and this is where this little drabble starts.

"Look at her," he said, anger edging every syllable. "You're not doing her a kindness. You're not doing _no one_ , least of all yourself, a kindness." 

Fen'harel threw a glance at the closed door, and made a gesture. The edges of the door glowed, and he knew the broken bird within could hear no more of what transpired in the corridor beyond her gilded cage. 

"I will not ask how you found out. But I ask that you leave this matter to me." 

He drew himself up to his full height, which put him eye to eye with Fen'harel. "I trust your judgment in many things. But not this." 

Blue eyes flashed. "You tread on thin ice, Abelas." 

"You are compromised. And you are well aware of it." 

Fen'harel sighed, and seemed to wilt a little. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes I am." 

"You looked upon the Tranquil as people who deserved the mercy of death. How is this different?" 

"Sometimes – sometimes she recognises me, and she remembers." 

"And is that a kindness?" 

Silence.

He sighed and turned. "Carry the lives you took around your neck if you must, but she doesn't deserve this." He strode out of the hallway, leaving Fenharel to the trappings of his guilt. 

\---

His thoughts strayed to the tower often, as did his feet. 

He had admired her as Inquisitor, a merciful, compassionate _shemlen_ who showed respect for him, his brethren and their beliefs. Bereft of his purpose, he had resided with the Inquisition as a scout for a time, and witnessed her comings and goings. Wiser than her twenty-six winters, she treated all with care and a smile, even if they were overperfumed courtiers who insulted her to her face. 

The whimpering pallid creature he'd glimpsed in the room was barely recognisable as Evelyn Trevelyan, save for the bright red hair, trimmed to a close crop. 

At last, he gave in to his morbid curiosity, and revisited the tower. Torches flared to life in their scones as he passed, and he laid a hand on her door, listening intently. A reedy thin humming threaded through the air. 

He took a breath, and laid his hand on the door, expecting a shock from whatever spells protected her. 

The door swung open silently. She was hunched in the corner, idly tracing patterns on the tiles when the sun hit. She didn't look up at his entrance, but her fingers and humming ceased. 

He clasped his hands before him, and slowly lowered himself to his knees to the floor. "Hello," he said in Common. 

She tilted her head just enough to regard him from the corner of her eye. He watched for a moment, and cautiously rearranged himself more comfortably. "What are you doing?" 

She scrunched her shoulders in a shrug, and shuffled closer to the wall. 

Well. This was more difficult than he anticipated. He cleared his throat. "Are you enjoying the sun? The weather has been warming up nicely." 

Her eyes shifted from him to the window, and slid back to the floor. 

He swallowed, and cast around for something else to say. "I hear the flowers are blooming, and some of my brethren are not reacting well to all the pollen in the air." 

A slight rustle as she turned to face him, her head cocked. Her eyes did not meet his, but he knew he now had her attention. 

  


And so he sat with her once a week, when he was not called away on business. He would talk, and she would listen. 

One day, she crept closer as he rambled on about a fool scout's escapades. and reached out with bloody, bitten fingertips to play with the edges of his cloak. He kept talking, and took care to keep as still as he could. 

As she learned it was safe to sit within arm's reach of him, his visits began to include sweetmeats and trinkets gathered from his travels, and her delight was a pleasure to behold 

He never ran into Fen'harel, but he suspected the other elf knew of his regular visits, for a new, thick rug appeared a month into his visits, and Evelyn patted it pointedly as she sat on a corner of it, legs crossed. 

Four months later, he found her perched by the open window, too-slight frame shaking. "Evelyn." 

When she turned, he suppressed a shudder. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from weeping and she looked terribly old. "Abelas." 

"You remember me." 

"Yes. From before." 

"Did you know it was me, on...other days?" 

"I don’t remember most of my days. But yes, I recall flashes of you seated on the floor talking to me. Thank you for the pastries you bring, by the way." 

He inclined his head. "Are you—well?" 

"Not on these days, when everything comes back to me. I've asked for the wards to keep...him out when this happens." 

"And I am allowed?" 

She smiled thinly. "Well it wasn't your magic who took my arm and left me for dead." 

He huffed in response. "I did leave the Inquisition to serve him." 

"A choice I don't begrudge you. He is kin to you, is he not? I would have welcomed any efforts to uplift the Elves. But not like this. Not at the cost of everyone else." 

They lapsed into silence for a time, he watching her curl in on herself, her breathing soft and erratic. At length, he laid his fingertips on her elbow. "Would you...like a hug?" 

She laughed wetly. "Is it so abhorrent to you?" 

"It is not customary among the Elvhen." 

"Well, I don't want you to feel like you have to." 

"You are..." He gestured with his hand. "...in need of comfort. And I am not so petty to deny it when I am able to provide." 

"How generous," she said with the faintest hint of snark before taking his hand to climb off the windowseat. "I think—I'll very much like one, if—if it's not too much trouble?" 

He politely ignored the waver in her voice, and slowly drew her to him, giving her plenty of time to refuse. She smelt of stale sweat – it was difficult for the servants to bathe her with her volatile moods – but he folded her into his arms as best as a fully armoured elf could. 

After that, he took care to dress in soft tunics and leather breeches, clothes that did not leave reddened marks on cheeks and temples laid against them. 

  
\--

"Have you considered taking her to the gardens?" He asked one evening, after a strategy meeting. The other generals had left the room, and only he and Fen'harel remained. 

Fen'harel lifted his head from the map. "I have, but her moods are...unpredictable." 

"She spends an inordinate number of time staring through the windows and sitting on the floor where the sun warms it." 

Fen'harel blinked, and heaved a sigh. "Does she?" 

"What does she do when you visit?" 

"She prefers to stay in the furthest corner of the room when I read to her." 

He felt a flash of pity for the other elf. Atonement was the last thing that could be found in a woman who watched him as a prey observed its predator. 

  
\--  


The passing of winters meant nothing to him, but they left footprints behind in the silvering of hair at her temples, and the wrinkles that gathered like wispy branches at the corners of her eyes. Crow's feet, she called them in her lucid moments. He watched these signs, knowing what they meant. The rending of the Veil may have lengthened the lives of him and his people, but for Evelyn Trevelyan, there was no graceful aging to be had. 

She began to ask for furs and wools even in the mild summer days. On her worst days, she would huddle under a pile of blankets on the rug, shivering.

The skin on her arm and legs crinkled and developed spots, which she gently explained were natural signs of age. "We do not age as beautifully as you, Abelas," she said, as he examined her hand. "You with your unnaturally silky hair, and gorgeous face."

"I oil my hair weekly."

"You mean it takes effort to achieve such perfection? Shocking."

"I see age has made you utterly impertinent. Now come, the librarian has asked for more accounts of Fereldan lore, and I must impose on you a little longer for them."

Her lucid days grew far and few between, as her hair faded from russet to snow. She reminded him of butterflies' wings, her skin so translucent in the daylight he could see her pulse fluttering in the hollow of her throat. He was torn between gladness that her former life tormented her less, and nostalgia for the days she traded gentle barbs with him, showing him glimpses of the vibrant, spirited woman she once was.

Fen'harel seemed to prefer denial, burying himself in paperwork, treaties and other matters of state.

"She asked about you," Abelas said one day as he handed over field reports.

The older elf looked up, mouth twisting bitterly. "Is that so?"

Abelas clasped his hands before him. "You cannot avoid her forever."

"No. I do not suppose I could." He turned to go, and Fen'harel's wistful voice gave him pause. "She is...fond of you."

He schooled his voice to neutrality. "She has no other companions."

"I am...glad. That she has someone whose company she enjoys."

He inclined his head and took his leave. 

\--  


When the time came, he was in the field. The hours it took for him to pass command to his second, and prepare for the ride back rankled. In his long years, time had not meant so much to him before.

Now.

Now, every hour – no, every _second_ meant he might miss his last meeting with someone important to him. Perhaps the _shemlen_ had the right of it, with their impatience to get everything done with as fast as they could.

Once in the courtyard, he sprang off his horse and charged through the castle, uncaring of the dust and grime he was coated in.

Dwarfed by the intricately carved bed and duvets heaped upon her, the quietly resigned gaze she turned upon him broke his heart. Fen'harel sat in a chair by her bed, far enough to give her space, but close enough to touch if he reached out. He held a book in trembling hands, and turned the pages too quickly.

He bent over her, hearing the thready flutter of her heart. "Do you know me?"

Her eyes lingered on his face, and her hand lifted. He ducked his head so she could catch a lock of his silver hair. She ran the strands through her fingers, and touched her fingers to his hand. Slowly, she nodded.

Fen'harel made a peculiar noise, half choked. She barely spared him a glance.

He took her hand, thin, feather-light and colder than it should be. "I came as soon as I could. I am glad it is not too late."

A tilt of her head, and a gentle smile that warmed him despite the circumstances.

"Are you tired?"

A nod, and a flutter of her eyelids.

"Would you...like me to sing for you?"

A soft breath, and her hand tightened around his marginally.

He cleared his throat, and began the first song that came to mind, a ballad of lost love he'd heard at the campfire days ago. It was an imperfect delivery, with a wavering voice and a throat that felt too tight, but the pleased light in her eyes was worth any self-consciousness he felt.

A hoarse tenor joined his. After a verse, Fen'harel stood and turned away, his shoulders shaking.

She sank back against her pillows, her breaths growing shallow and soft. As he began the closing verse, she exhaled, the barest whisper.

Her chest did not rise again.

He finished the line, and gently laid her hand over her breast. _"Aneth ara_ , Evelyn. _Ar lasa mala revas."_

Fen'harel stooped to pass a hand over her brow. "If I may, Abelas."

He bowed, and left the bedchamber to give the other elf the privacy to grieve.

  


In the rosy light of dawn, they stood before her pyre. As the smoke curled skywards, he watched the birds soaring above, and smiled to imagine her among the clouds.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick disclaimer: I don't claim to understand mental health well, nor is Evelyn's state meant to be a realistic portrayal of someone who's suffered a great deal of psychological trauma. 
> 
> This was written at one of my lowest points last year, when I was experiencing panic attacks, and it was massively cathartic for me to get this out on the page. Thank you for sticking with this to the end, and have an awesome day, lovely readers!


End file.
